Buckshot alloy

[white eagle]

Curious as to which alloy for casting #4 buck
would str8 lead be the choice or a harder alloy be more in line

[bstone5]

I use what ever lead I that will fill out the mold well. The mold is a Sharp Shooter Mold that cast both #4 and 00. The mold has to be very hot to work. I heat the mold with a bottle propane torch and use heavy welding gloves with this mold. A little tin helps with the mold fill out.
I coat the shot with Hi-Tech coating after casting, the coating keeps lead out of the barrel.
The lead is usually 92-6-2 allot since I have an Automated Master Caster to cast large volumes of common pistol bullets but some times I have another alloy in the Lee bottom pour pot used with the Sharp Shooter mold. A little hard lead seems to work best for the #4 buck shot.
My grand son has a single shot 410 and I load 444 Marlin brass with the #4 buck shot for him to shoot.

[runfiverun]

1-1.5% antimony would be pretty close to what the factory's use.
I just use ww/soft alloy and drop them on the table from about a foot up to break everything apart.

[jmort]

Chilled shot is around 2% and Magnum Shot is 4 to 5%

[375RUGER]

range lead here.

[Moonie]

I use COWW and water drop my 00 out of my Lee mold. Makes them real hard.

[TXCOONDOG]

I just cast 8 lbs of 00 using a SS 00/# 4 combo mold and my alloy is COWW.

I also use 45-45-10 to lube them to prevent oxidation.

[Hogtamer]

Hard is best, minimizes distortion of pellets. My best have been with this high antimony lead from a vendor here with a little buffer. Great stuff.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...shipping-12-10)

[6pt-sika]

To each his own . I cast a bunch of 0000 and 00000 all water quenched WW's . They both patterned well enough for my needs and the 00000 certainly laid the smack down on the one deer i fired it at this past season .

[RMc]

My preference is a final product of roughly 16 BHN

An alloy/BHN chart can be found here:

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm

[GBertolet]

I had a pot full of zinc contaminated wheel weights. Wouldn't cast bullets worth a darn , so I tried it on a Sharpshooter 00 buck mold. I worked pretty good. The cavities filled out well, and the pellets were very hard, and only about 1.5 gr lighter than pure lead. They patterned great. After shooting them through plywood and recovering them from the dirt bank, they were not deformed one bit. I definitely believe hard pellets are the way to go now.

[white eagle]

may have to mix a bit of lino into the alloy
like 50/50 lino ww water dropped

[meadmkr]

I had a pot full of zinc contaminated wheel weights. Wouldn't cast bullets worth a darn , so I tried it on a Sharpshooter 00 buck mold.

I have some suspect lead I was given a while ago and might give it a try since I have enough fishing sinkers made to last for my future great-grandkids

[trapper9260]

I had a pot full of zinc contaminated wheel weights. Wouldn't cast bullets worth a darn , so I tried it on a Sharpshooter 00 buck mold. I worked pretty good. The cavities filled out well, and the pellets were very hard, and only about 1.5 gr lighter than pure lead. They patterned great. After shooting them through plywood and recovering them from the dirt bank, they were not deformed one bit. I definitely believe hard pellets are the way to go now.

You gave me an idea now what to do with the zinc i have , you would not have to worry about doing much to the shot then take it apart and take the rough edges off and go at it.